The Not-So-Pagan Origins of Easter

If you have been on the internet at all around this time of year, you have no doubt at some point encountered claims that Easter is actually a pre-Christian pagan holiday and that popular modern Easter traditions such as the Easter bunny and painting Easter eggs are actually thinly-veiled pagan customs. I am here to tell you that these claims are essentially bunk. Although the holiday of Easter takes its name in English from an obscure Anglo-Saxon dawn goddess, the holiday itself is of Christian origin and there is no evidence to support the notion that popular traditions such as the Easter bunny and the painting of Easter eggs were ever pagan.

The origins of the Christian holiday of Easter

Today, most people in the United States generally tend to think of Christmas as the most important Christian holiday because it is so widely celebrated and commercialized, but, in ancient times, early Christians considered Easter the most important holiday of the year.

They did not call it Easter, though; instead, they called it Πάσχα (Páscha), which was originally the Ancient Greek word for “Passover.” In fact, the modern word for Easter in almost every single European language is some variation of “Pascha.” The only major exceptions to this rule are English and German.

In the early days, the imagery associated with Easter was indisputably Christian: mostly scenes from the gospels, particularly the resurrection accounts.

ABOVE: Traditional Greek Orthodox icon from Athens, Greece, depicting the crucifixion of Jesus

There were no Greek or Roman holidays that bore any resemblance to the Christian holiday of Easter. The date of Easter, like the name of the holiday in most languages, comes from the Jewish Passover. Judaism appears to have been the only major non-Christian influence on Easter, which makes complete sense considering that Christianity arose out of first-century Judaism.

Ēostre, an Anglo-Saxon dawn goddess

There is only one aspect of Easter that has even the remotest connection to paganism: its name in English. In 725 AD, the Northumbrian monk Bede the Venerable (lived c. 673 – 735 AD) wrote the following statement in his book De Temporum Ratione:

“Eosturmonath has a name which is now translated ‘Paschal month’, and which was once called after a goddess of theirs named Ēostre, in whose honour feasts were celebrated in that month. Now they designate that Paschal season by her name, calling the joys of the new rite by the time-honoured name of the old observance.”

On the surface, this makes the situation sound pretty cut and dried. Judging from Bede’s statements, it sounds as though Easter must be merely a Christianized version of that ancient pagan festival.

In reality, however, Easter as we know it today likely has very little, if anything, to do with that pagan festival. When Pascha was introduced to England from Continental Europe, it took on the name of Ēostre, but nothing more. All the customs we associate with Easter either come from the Christian tradition or from modern innovation.

Although Bede lived in a time when English paganism was still alive, it was already rapidly dying out. Most English people had already converted to Christianity. Many traditional customs were either no longer practiced or simply so confused that they bore little resemblance to their original forms.

Furthermore, Bede, as a devoted monk, kept paganism at more than an arm’s length. In his writings, he barely mentions anything at all about the beliefs of his pagan contemporaries, even when information about them might have supported his arguments. Bede seems to have been raised as a Christian by Christian parents in a Christian community. His knowledge of actual pagan practices seems to have been exclusively derived from rumor and hearsay rather than actual first-hand experience.

Finally, the supposed goddess Ēostre is never mentioned in any other sources. The paragraph quoted above from De Temporum Ratione is the only time she is ever mentioned in any work of Anglo-Saxon literature. Even Bede himself never mentions her anywhere else in his writings. There is not even an equivalent of Ēostre in Norse mythology. In fact, the only reason we can be certain that she was really worshipped at all is because her name just so happens to be almost exactly the expected Anglo-Saxon reflex of the name of the reconstructed Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess *H_ɑéusōs.

Based on this, I think we can more-or-less definitively conclude that Ēostre really was worshipped among the Anglo-Saxons. I think we can also fairly safely conclude that she was probably some type of dawn goddess. Aside these bare details, however, we know nothing whatsoever.

The German word for Easter is Ostern, which seems to suggest that the ancient Germans may have had some kind of goddess equivalent to the Anglo-Saxon Ēostre, but if they did, she is never mentioned in any Old German texts. Jakob Grimm (the same one known for writing Grimm’s Fairy Tales, along with his brother Wilhelm) attempted to reconstruct a German *Ostara based off the word “Ostern.” Many modern scholars, however, have criticized this attempted reconstruction, insisting that it is too speculative and relies too heavily on assumption.

Some authors have attempted to link the modern tradition of “sunrise” Easter services with the fact that Ēostre was likely a dawn goddess. This, however, is doubtful due to the fact that the earliest recorded Easter “sunrise” service occurred in 1732 in what is now the German state of Saxony, long after the veneration of Ēostre had long-since been eradicated.

Easter eggs

The association of eggs with Easter originated in western Europe during the High Middle Ages. In medieval times, during the period of Lent before Easter, Catholic Christians were traditionally forbidden from eating eggs. Since Easter was the first time after Lent when Christians were allowed to consume eggs, a close association of eggs with Easter naturally began to develop. Eventually, the custom arose of having eggs blessed for Easter dinner.

Meanwhile, during Lent, people’s hens continued to lay eggs, but people were forbidden from eating them. Therefore, they had to find something else to do with them. Thus, the custom arose of painting eggs for Lent. Originally, the eggs were only painted red and not any other colors, because, traditionally, the color red was supposed to symbolize the blood of Christ. The egg itself was supposed to symbolize the empty tomb. Painting eggs red for Lent is still a popular custom in many predominately Eastern Orthodox countries.

This custom was adopted by Lutherans in Germany during the Protestant Reformation in the 1500s. It was only after the tradition reached England in around the 1600s and 1700s that people began painting Easter eggs colors other than red. Chocolate Easter eggs originated in the late 1800s in western European countries like France and Germany.

ABOVE: A traditional Greek Orthodox Paschal egg, painted red and decorated with the sign of the cross

Easter egg hunts

The modern custom of hunting for Easter eggs is traditionally said to have originated with the German Protestant reformer Martin Luther (lived 1483 – 1546). Traditionally, Martin Luther is said to have started a tradition in which men would hide eggs on Easter morn and the women would go out and find them. This was supposedly intended to represent the women discovering Christ’s empty tomb on Easter morning.

We can be fairly certain that this was indeed a real custom among German Lutherans, but the story about Martin Luther as the originator of the custom is highly dubious. It is more likely that the custom developed organically through normal folkloric processes and was only later attributed to Martin Luther, since he was a famous individual and the origins of traditional practices often tend to eventually become attributed to specific famous individuals. Later, the custom was appropriated so that adults would hide the eggs and the children would go out and search for them.

ABOVE: Portrait of the German Protestant reformer Martin Luther, who, according to Lutheran tradition, is said to have been the first person to come up with the idea of an Easter egg hunt

The Easter bunny

The Easter bunny is actually a very recent addition to Easter folklore. it originated among Lutherans in Germany in the late seventeenth century. The earliest mention of the Easter bunny comes from De Ovis Paschalibus by Georg Franck von Franckenau in 1682, which refers to the “Osterhase,” or “Easter hare,” who, according to German folklore, was said to hide Easter eggs for children to find.

Scholars do not know exactly why the custom of the Easter bunny originated. This, however, has not deterred even otherwise responsible scholars from engaging in wild speculation about how the unattested “cult of Ēostre” may have involved the veneration of bunny rabbits. In his 1874 book German Mythology, the reputable German philologist Adolf Holtzmann groundlessly ruminates that “…the hare was [probably] the sacred animal of Ôstara.”

The simple fact of the matter remains, however, that there is no concrete evidence whatsoever linking the German Osterhase to the English goddess Ēostre. No source ever mentions Ēostre in connection with rabbits or even with fertility of any kind in general. Furthermore, the gap between Bede’s sole mention of Ēostre and the first reference to the Osterhase spans nearly 1000 years, during which time there is not one mention of any goddess named Ēostre or any kind of festival associated with her independent of Bede’s account.

The most probable explanation for the origins of the Easter bunny is simply that bunny rabbits often come out in the spring, around the same time of the year as Easter. Some people may hope for a more “rational” explanation than this one, but, in doing so, they would be neglecting that fact that folklore is frequently irrational and quite often downright bizarre. Sometimes, even the most peculiar of ideas can become long-lasting traditions.

ABOVE: Postcard from 1907 showing a rabbit with the words “Loving Easter Greeting”